so i took the donkey out

Lent, for some reason is a clash between being legalistic and well… looking like I never gave anything up for Lent.  It’s a microcosm of my life I suppose.  Trying to live a life like Jesus, but knowing full well sometimes it is okay to take a donkey out of a hole on the Sabbath (Luke 4:15).   
 

This year?  Giving up television for lent has been one thing, doing it is completely another.  Depending on how I look at it, I am doing really good or not so good.  Or maybe in the midst of the struggle I am living just how I am supposed to be.  The television has definitely been on during Lent.  I am not even going to try to lie about that.  It was on during the Olympics; in fact more than it was before Lent.  After that, it was Netflix and more Netflix.  And then in the in-between days it might be the one episode of Lost or The Office that we didn’t get to watch on Sunday.  Well, that’s the struggle.   


But, there has been much less television, especially during the early evening hours.  There has been more talking and more reading.  There has been more game playing and more music in the house.  There is still the occasional Netflix watching as I knew there would be, but since Lent has started there hasn’t been any Friends or The Office (besides watching the latest episodes as I said above).  All-in-all someone might give me a “D” for effort, but everyone is graded on a different scale, and I feel good at where I’m at during this Lenten season.  It’s not perfect, but my focus and deliberation has been in the right place.